Stone 7th Anniversary Ale

Formerly brewed at Stone Brewing Co.
Style: American Strong Ale
Escondido, California USA

A nice amber color and moderately foamy head. It has a hopped up aroma that is slightly sweet too. Very well balanced flavor, in a different way. The hop bitterness lingers but is mixed with some malt smoothness/sweetness which tones the bite down nicely. The balance seems to be not from merging the hops and malt into a balance, but from pointing them away from each other. Good beer.

Cloudy, thick orange. Thin, even head, even with a fairly careless pour. Very fragrant - Kind of floral, but also cinnamon and toffee. First taste is ever so slightly candyish, and then herbal and bitter, but an earthy and musty bitter. Somewhere a little citrus pops up. Rich, full mouth coating finish. lingering smoke taste, but just a tiny bit.

Poured a coppery gold with a quickly evaporating head. Smelled alcoholy and sweet. Very bitter assault that moves quickly to the back of the tongue. Pretty nice!

Excellent orange color with nice medium head. Aroma is big grapefruit hops and big malt. Very interesting aroma. Taste is citrus hops with a surprising malt presence. Big body and very creamy. Another good brew from Stone.

I had heard this was a "balanced" beer, but one could only say that when comparing it to Stone's previous anniversary ales. It is a dense orange color with a small head, with a fairly earthy aroma, smells like soil from Florida or Valencia maybe,lots of dead citrus in the compost pile, ifyaknowhatimean, with a slight hint of coffee. Creamy texture, with fairly pronounced bitterness, with just a hint of sweet malt that all most balances it, but not quite. Heavy evergreen hop burps after half a glass. Has the brandy/cognac thing going on, like a cognac and grapefruit cocktail, which is not exactly ideal in my book, but still, I guess I like it.

Deep amber in my Lager glass with a frothy, cream colored head that left good lacing. The nose reminds me of pineapple upside-down cake. Strong malt back bone but the flavor is all hop. Grapefruit, pineapple, orange rind and apple sauce. Very smooth mouthfeel even if it is a little syrupy. Sometimes you just have to ignore the verbiage on the bottle and just drink the beer. Greg, shut up and make more beer.

Best of show ft Wayne pub crawl '03. Some head that was miscolored--tan. Hoppy smell and taste almost shockingly hoppy yet sweet undertones with an interesting combo of spices. Fruit?? I do not think so. Nice none-the-less.

Bottled. Reddish brown. Nutty, grapefruity hop aroma. Aromatic and softly malty. Soem cookie malt. Long, rather clean and very aromatic finish with a lot of bitterness. A typically rude and straight forward Stone ale.